Who killed Skittles the clown?
by Alecca
Summary: A clown is murdered. And the last people who saw him alive are none other then the scoobies. It's up to a Sunnydale PD detective to interrogate and figure out whathow happened. Sort of a silly fic :) COMPLETE
1. 1

Title: Who killed Skittles the clown? (1/?)  
Author: Alecca  
e-mail: alecca4you@netscape.net  
Summary: A clown is murdered. And the last people who saw him are none other then the scoobies. It's up to a Sunnydale PD detective to interrogate and figure out what/how happened. Sort of a silly fic :)  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: I own nothing Btvs.  
Feedback: Begging helps. So please, pretty please?  
Author's note: A friend told me I should write something looser after 'Emerald Dynasty' and its deep/serious plot, so this is the result.   
  
  
Who Killed Skittles The Clown?  
  
Part 1:  
The interrogation of Dawn Summers  
  
The name's Ronald. Ronald Thrump. My friends call me Ron, never Ronnie.   
  
I've seen a lot of strange cases since I've had the misfortune to land a job as a detective in the crime department of the Sunnydale P.D, but none of them as weird as this one. Sunnydale has given me my share of nightmares, but this, this had to be the sickest. This is the story of a clown. A clown named Skittles, that messed with the wrong people and wound up getting sent up the river. Not literally of course. The body was found in the park, two shovel blows, one to the head, one to the back. His bright red nose burned, his right hand bandaged with a colorful handkerchief and his cheerful clothes slimed forever. Found in a freshly dug hole . They hadn't had time to bury the body, we were too quick for them. Cause of death? He'd choked on an olive. Obvious diagnosis: Murder.   
  
The clown's phone bill said that Skittles had got an anonymous phone call, right after midnight, from the payphone outside the Bronze. From this I deduced that the person who'd called him was the one who suggested he go to the park. A note in the clown's handwriting had been left on his dresser; 'Gone to the park. Won't be too long. Skittles'. Sadly, he had been wrong. He would be quite a while. Forever in fact.   
  
Skittles had believed he had no enemies, but I knew better.  
  
Her name was Summers, first name Dawn. Your regular sixteen year old. Long hair, medium height. Pink shirt, leather jacket, lip gloss. She walked into my office with that blank, careless look teenagers have. When she sat down in front of me and arranged her hair, I could tell she was a trouble maker. Her face had guilt written all over it.   
  
"You don't think I really had to do anything with it, do you?"   
  
Her tone was confident. I figured she would be a hard witness to crack.  
  
"He was last seen at your birthday party. And you didn't seem very happy about it,"  
  
She shrugged.  
  
"Wouldn't you be? My sweet 16 and a clown shows up. It was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me."   
  
The spark of anger in her eyes told me everything. She had the motive inside her, but had she followed it? Was she capable of...murder?  
  
"Witnesses say that you..." I picked up one of the reports. " 'Started screaming hysterically, and threatened to kill somebody. Again.' "  
  
"Yeah, my sister," she rolled her eyes.   
  
She was acting cocky. I guessed her alibi must be a good one.  
  
"You tried to kill your sister in the past?" I asked her, curiously.  
  
"No, it was a..." she hesitated, looking around the office. "Private joke. She almost drowned once,"   
  
She was lying. I can smell a lie a mile off. Yeah, she smelled like a ton of lies and, well...strawberries.   
  
"Where were you between midnight and 2 am?"   
  
I asked her the question straight out.  
  
"I was at the Bronze with my friends. I had to get them to forget about the clown. Although I don't know if they ever will. They kept making clown puns all night." she shook her head in exasperation.  
  
"That must've made you pretty mad. Mad enough to maybe...leave the Bronze around midnight and call Skittles to meet you?"  
  
I formulated my theory,   
  
"You could've conveniently slipped out in the crowd. Made it to the park in time to meet Skittles, and then knock him unconscious with a shovel. You dug a hole, hit him in the head again and started to bury him, before looking at your watch. You saw it was late. Your friends would be looking for you. So you left the body in the hole and ran back to the Bronze."   
  
"Geez Mister, you have a sick imagination! Besides, I wasn't mad at the clown, I was mad with my sister."   
  
The girl looked at me defiantly. That was her excuse, her sister. There had to be something behind it.   
  
"Yeah, you were. But maybe you thought that if the clown was dead, your friends would stop making jokes?"  
  
"Right, I'm gonna go kill someone 'cause my friends are acting like a bunch of teenage morons? As if! If I thought like that, a lot more people would be dead. What am I, a psychotic lunatic? "   
  
She was exasperated. Maybe I overreacted, but I knew she knew something, and I knew she had to have been there. The evidence was obvious.  
  
"I know you were gone from the Bronze, Dawn. And I know you were in the graveyard that night. I also know you were in the park."   
  
I smiled winningly, and the surprise was all over on her face. I'd got her!  
  
"How could you?" she asked, confused.   
  
She'd obviously thought that she'd covered her tracks pretty well. I knew she had to be the murderer, it was that look in her eyes.  
  
"Simple," I said. "I analyzed your shoe."   
  
I pulled out the evidence bag that held it.   
  
"The lab report is clear. You were in the park and you were at the cemetery."  
  
"And how do you know it's not from another night?" she asked, still not giving in. Dumb kid. She didn't know who she was trying to mess with.  
  
"Because these are the shoes your sister bought you for your birthday. Your friend Janice told us. And you were gone from the Bronze for a while. You told Laurie you were going to the bathroom, but she said she didn't see you for an hour."  
  
I stood up and pointed an accusatory finger at her.  
  
"You went to the park, didn't you? And then you grabbed the shovel!"  
  
"No! No, I didn't!!!"   
  
A-ha! She was beginning to lose her temper.  
  
"Yes, you did and you..."   
  
I started to elaborate, but she interrupted.  
  
"Give me a break! And where did I get the shovel? After midnight? I guess I knocked off a seven-eleven too, huh? Or what, I brought the shovel earlier that day? When I didn't even know the freaking clown, what ever his name was? I just had a feeling I would need a shovel later? Oh, or better, someone left a shovel just lying around and I happened to find it!"   
  
She was being sarcastic. Becoming impatient. I was sure that pretty soon she would break.   
  
"Maybe it was there. Maybe it wasn't planned out like that. What did you want to do to the clown? Maybe burn him? Like you burnt his nose? Or choke him, huh?" I accused her.  
  
"No!"   
  
She fidgeted in her seat.   
  
"So if you weren't in the park, where were you for an hour? Did you take a walk outside? Maybe you made that phone call, but never made it to the park. Maybe someone did Skittles in for you? Was it like that?"   
  
As I said that I leaned over the desk to get a better look at her. If she had flinched even slightly, I would've seen it.  
  
"Oh, geez! Look...my sister came to the Bronze. She wanted to apologize so we took a walk, okay? We went to the park. It was after midnight, but we didn't see or kill any clown,"   
  
Ah, I had a confession!  
  
"So your sister is in it too! She was the one who brought the shovel, wasn't she?"   
  
I realized that this would drastically alter my theory.   
  
"But why would my sister want to kill a clown?"   
  
That was always going to be the question. There had to be something. Something I had yet to discover, obviously.   
  
"So what did you do in the park?" I asked her, trying to put all the pieces together.   
  
"We talked," she said leaning back in the chair, more relieved now.  
  
"And what about the graveyard? Why did you go to the graveyard?"   
I remembered the shoe had mud from the graveyard too.   
  
"Is that where you got the shovel from?"   
  
"Would you quit it?! There was no shovel!"   
  
She was getting annoyed again. Perfect. Uncontrolled anger often leads to a confession.   
  
"There is a shovel, this shovel."   
  
I pulled the shovel from under my desk. She stared at the deformed metal.  
  
"That doesn't look like a shovel,"   
  
"Of course it doesn't. Someone burnt it. No fingerprints you see."   
  
It was her, it had to be her. I looked at her, working out how she must have done it. She'd killed Skittles and set her sister up as her alibi. Then she'd burned the shovel to erase the evidence, and thrown the body in the hole. But how had Skittle's nose been burnt, and what about the burn on his right hand, the one that was bandaged? And how could a helpless teenager like her have carried a body as big as Skittles'? She had to have had some help. The sister perhaps? Nah, she was a skinny little thing, even smaller then this one.   
  
"Great, so you have something that kinda looks like a shovel. But it's just...some weird metal." she was still looking at it, frowning. "Could be anything."  
  
"It had a wooden handle, but it turned to ash. I still have it." I said, picking up yet another evidence bag. She shrugged, finally giving in.  
  
"Okay, so it was a shovel. So what?"  
  
"So...are you going to tell me what you were doing in the graveyard?" I asked, returning to my initial idea.  
  
"How do you know I was in the graveyard? What, did you like take samples of mud from everywhere in the city so you could find out where I was?"   
  
She always answered with a question. She was defending herself. This was good.   
  
"Actually the coroner recognized it. That graveyard dirt has some mineral thing about it." She shrugged again, crossing her arms.  
  
"I went to see a friend..." she stopped herself in the middle of the sentence. "A dead friend."  
  
"You went to the grave of a friend...on your birthday?"   
  
This was getting too strange.  
  
"A good friend." she jumped in. "It doesn't depress me to see him, even if he is dead."  
  
"Okay..."   
  
I was beginning to think maybe a psychological examination would be in order.   
  
"Do you have many dead friends you visit?"  
  
"Hello! This is Sunnydale? I have tons of dead friends..."   
  
She realized how strange her words sounded, and attempted to cover herself by bursting into an explanation.  
  
"Friends who... are in graves, not walking around, or that I talk to or anything. Dead friends...that are...sad. I mean...that...it's sad. That they're dead."  
  
"So why did you go to see your friend's grave, if it makes you sad?" I asked her. I was close, I could feel it.   
  
"It wasn't...I didn't go see a friend's grave."   
  
I knew it!   
  
"I went to my mom's grave."  
  
"So why didn't you say that in the first place? Why did you say a friend?" I asked her. I was sure she'd said 'he' before. That meant she was lying, again.   
  
"My mom was my friend," she said.   
  
I smiled despite myself. That was actually pretty sweet. Obviously her Mom, wasn't at all like my mother. She'd sent me to military school when I was twelve.  
  
"All right, Miss Summers, that's all for now," I told her.   
  
It was useless to push it now. And what can I say? The mother bit had gotten to me.  
  
"Okay, hope you catch your...clown killing criminal." she said, standing up. "Bye!"   
  
  
She left the office, lifting that strawberry scent into the air again. It had to be her. Sure my first theory was pretty much going to pieces, but now I had a new theory! Dawn had left the Bronze, made the phone call, and then waited for her sister to show up. They'd taken a walk, conveniently towards the park, leaving enough time to get there on time and meet Skittles.   
  
Once there, they'd had a talk, twenty minutes tops, then she'd sent her sister home, saying that she was going back to the Bronze. But instead she'd gone to the other side of the park to meet Skittles. She'd hit him twice with the shovel. Then she'd dug a hole, rolled his body into it, and then set fire to the shovel, which accidentally fell on Skittles - burning his nose. Then, as she was about to bury him, she saw it was getting late, left the body and went back to the club.   
  
But where had the shovel come from?   
  
Was it just a coincidence? Or had the shovel given her the idea to kill him? Why had she burned the shovel before trying to cover Skittles with earth? And if the shovel had fallen on top of Skittles, how had she gotten it out of the hole without burning herself?   
  
And what about Skittles's bandaged wound? Was that something to throw us off track? And how did the graveyard fit into all of this? And the olive...and the slime?   
  
There was more to this. There had to be. And I had to find out what.   
  
End Part 1 


	2. 2

Part 2:  
The Interrogation Of Buffy Anne Summers   
  
  
After the departure of the young Miss Summers, it wasn't long before her sister knocked on my door.   
  
Her name, Buffy Anne Summers. Small, blond, green sad eyes. She looked like someone who'd been through a lot in her life. Blue blouse, fashionable yet inexpensive black boots. She had that confident look that some people have, a look that simply says; 'there's nothing you could say that would surprise me'. For a short person she filled the air with an almost threatening self-assurance, like she was in possession of some kind of unknown power. I wondered if I could shake that confidence. She smelled like fries and half-burnt burgers. I was hungry.  
  
"Miss Summers."   
  
Politely, I saluted her.   
  
"Officer."   
  
She responded to my salute, although her reply seemed a little stale and empty.  
  
"Detective," I corrected her, not minding her indifference. "Detective Thrump. Ronald Thrump."  
  
"Thrump?" she asked, and a smile played in the corner of her mouth.   
  
I don't like my name being mocked.   
  
"Yes, Thrump." I said, trying not to comment on anything. Her name was Buffy after all. "I believe you know why you're here."  
  
"Yeah. I have to answer a bunch of stupid questions about the dead clown."   
  
Funny how she immediately assumed they were stupid. How would she know?  
  
"Something like that," I said, and cleared my throat.   
  
My stomach was churning and I hoped she wouldn't hear it.   
  
"So tell me Miss Summers, why did you invite Skittles to your sister's birthday party? She is a teenager after all."  
  
She shrugged,  
  
"I didn't know it was gonna be a party. She didn't say a thing about having her friends over. She said we'd celebrate, that's all,"   
  
She leaned forward in the chair.  
  
"And celebration doesn't include having friends coming over?"   
  
"When she said we'd celebrate, I just assumed it was gonna be just me, her, and a couple of close friends of ours. That's why I called the clown. She used to love them when she was little. It was just going to be a little joke, between us...I didn't know."   
  
It was obvious she still felt sorry for what she had done. But the question was...had she been sorry enough to help her sister kill Skittles?   
  
"Are you sure you didn't want to embarrass her? Make her feel the pain maybe you did once?"   
  
She rolled her eyes. She and her sister were very much alike. Maybe even murderously alike.   
  
"Are you a detective or a psychologist? I mean...just so as I know who I'm confessing my murderous ways to."   
  
I never really appreciated sarcasm.  
  
"Miss Summers, this is a serious matter." She looked away from me, probably to hide an exasperated look. I continued, "So how did your sister react when she saw the clown?"  
  
"She didn't really see him. It was more like he came in singing a birthday song, and looking for Dawn...with lots of balloons."   
  
"Did she scream? Did she threaten to kill you? To kill Skittles maybe?"   
  
I stood up, looking down at her, but she just shrugged again.  
  
"She was mad. People say things they don't mean when they're mad."   
  
"True."   
  
Yes, people often say things they don't mean. But it was my job to know which ones they did mean. Dawn Summers had threatened to kill her sister. She hadn't meant that. She had also threatened to kill Skittles. That she had meant. There was no use trying to analyze it any longer, I wanted answers.  
  
"Was she mad with you when she went to the Bronze with her friends?"   
  
I saw her hesitation, before she eventually answered.  
  
"Yes."   
  
"And what did you do after she left?" I asked her, knowing that she probably knew what her sister had told me already. If they had planned the murder together it would be hard for me to find out the truth.  
  
"I went...took a walk. With a friend. He told me I should go to the Bronze and sort things out with her, not leave her mad on her birthday."   
  
A friend. So there was a third party in this conspiracy.  
  
"And who might this friend be?" I asked, curiously.  
  
"Alexander Harris." she told me.   
  
I remembered that name from somewhere.  
  
"He was at the party, right?"   
  
I remembered a list of the people who had been present at the Summers' house, at the time Skittles had appeared. I also remembered that a number of people had said that Harris had had a strange reaction to the appearance of the clown, but I didn't mention it. Had this Alexander Harris known Skittles, and had an unsettled score with him? Perhaps. I had to investigate further. I wrote down the name on my notepad and underlined it. Twice.  
  
"That's right. He's one of those close friends I told you about."   
  
"And you went straight to the Bronze after talking to this friend?"   
  
I was trying to add Alexander Harris to my theory, but I couldn't seem to place him. He had to fit somewhere. He was, after all, the one who sent Buffy Anne Summers to the Bronze after her sister.   
  
"Yeah."   
  
There was more behind this answer. I knew it, I could read it in her eyes. She hadn't gone straight to the Bronze. Had she gone somewhere else? Had Dawn made the phone call to Skittles, and had the clown meet her sister in the park? Had Buffy hit him with the shovel and later returned with Dawn to bury him?   
  
"So you met your sister at the Bronze, a little after midnight, and you walked around, talking. You walked to the park, didn't see a thing, and then she went back to her friends and you went home. Is that right?"   
  
Those were her sister's words.  
  
"Pretty much."   
  
She wasn't a cooperative witness. I had to change that. There had to be a weak link in their story.   
  
"How about the graveyard? Why did you go there?"   
  
A-ha! I'd surprised her!  
  
"I wasn't in the graveyard."   
  
She tried to deny it, but it was obvious she had been there. I had no evidence, but I heard it in her voice.  
  
"Your sister was in the graveyard. She said she went to your mother's grave." I told her, trying to lead her into confessing something more.  
  
"She probably went alone. When we use to fight, she'd always go to my Mom. I guess now that she's no longer alive, visiting her grave maybe brings her the same comfort."  
  
Her words touched me, and I probably would've burst into tears if my position as Detective in charge of a murder investigation hadn't prevented it. Why wasn't my Mom so good to me?  
  
"Are you sure you weren't in the cemetery that night?"   
  
I insisted, squinting at her.  
  
"Yes, I'm sure."   
  
She refused to confess, but perhaps there was another way around it.  
  
"So you walked around with this friend. Where did you go? You just walked around without any purpose?"   
  
"I walked him home," she said, casually .  
  
"Why would he need someone to walk him home? Was he in any danger? And...no offense, but you don't really look like you could help if there was!"   
  
She glared at me, but now my mind was working. What if Harris had been in trouble? Maybe with Skittles? Maybe he had forgotten to pay the clown sometime, and he feared his revenge?  
  
"I just felt like talking and...not staying at home, so I walked him home."  
  
"Are you in an intimate relationship with this friend?" I asked her.   
  
"NO!"   
  
The suggestion seemed to revolt her.  
  
"Just thought I should ask."  
  
A relationship to her might have given this Alexander Harris motivation to be an accomplice. Was 'a close friendship' enough for someone to be a part of a brutal murder? Maybe.   
  
"And how long were you out with this friend? An exact hour would be nice."  
  
I tried to find some sort of mistake, but her story seemed flawless. I knew from a couple of colleagues that this girl Buffy Summers had had some run-ins with the police. And that, once, a close friend of hers had been charged and imprisoned for a murder that took place here in Sunnydale.  
  
Few people knew that, on the night of the murder, there had been two people sighted near the crime scene, not one. I wondered how she'd gotten away with it. She'd probably convinced her friend not to rat on her, yeah, that was it. Who knows, maybe there'd even been some emotional black-mail. Yeah. I looked at her again. She certainly had what it took to be a brutal criminal. She didn't seem to care much about anything. She knew there was no way I was going to catch her and so she didn't even hide it. The truth was right there on her face. It was so obvious, I wanted to point right at her, but I thought it would be impolite.  
  
"Dawn left around nine, we cleaned...so around ten...eleven PM."   
  
Had she just calculated the exact amount of time that would prove her innocence? Of course, this friend of hers would confirm the time if she was lying.   
  
"And you talked...how long? An hour? Half an hour? Two hours? Fifteen minutes?"   
  
I asked her as if the answer didn't matter to me, holding back a nervous twitch that would've betrayed my intense curiosity.  
"Around a half an hour."   
  
She'd let something slip at last.  
  
"A-ha!"   
  
I jumped up, startling her.   
  
"Half an hour means you had around an hour, or a half an hour to get to the Bronze. And you picked up your sister a little after midnight. Where were you between eleven-thirty and midnight? Well?"   
  
I slammed my hands on the desk, and she stood up with an angry glare. Never good to yell at a woman, my Mom always told me that. Especially if it's possible that they're a psychotic criminal.   
  
"It does take time to get to the Bronze you know! And calm down!"  
  
I sat back down,   
  
"I'm sorry I shouldn't have lost my temper like that," .  
  
"No, you shouldn't." she said, but her look of anger melted as she took her seat again.  
  
"So, you're sticking to that story?" I cleared my throat, a little nervous now.   
  
"If it is one." she said, rolling her eyes again.   
  
It was obvious all the hours I'd already spent on this investigation, meant nothing to her. I was wasting her time. Time she could've spent somewhere else, doing something else. Planning another murder maybe?   
  
"You can go, but I still may need you for further questioning. So don't leave town or anything."   
  
She got up,  
  
"Yeah, I'll take the first plane to Tahiti." she said, shaking her head as she headed for the door. "Like I could afford it."  
  
As she disappeared out the door, I was lost in my thoughts. If her sister Dawn had been suspicious, Buffy Summers was even more so. She had free time, and although she had an alibi, she had had an hour before midnight. To do what? Go to the graveyard? Skittles had come to the park after midnight, so she couldn't have killed him then. So then, what had she done? Provided the shovel? Decided to reconcile with her sister by killing the one person that had ruined her birthday party?   
  
And what about the graveyard? I still didn't know how that fitted in? Why had Dawn Summers really been in the cemetery? It was one of the questions I just couldn't seem to answer. I now added to my theory - Buffy Summers, the obvious provider of the shovel. And of course - Alexander Harris, his strange reaction to Skittles and the fact that he had been walked home by Buffy Summers. Could he have been a third conspirator? The one who was suppose to bury the body, but was too late? What if the burning of the shovel was an accident? What if something else had happened to it? There was no way of knowing that, on the wooden handle, there would have been fingerprints. So then who, or what, had set off the torching of the shovel?   
  
I didn't like it. There were too many stable alibis. There had to be more people mixed up in the whole business. The question was who? I needed to know, but it was late...and I was hungry.  
  
End Part 2 


	3. 3

Part 3:  
The interrogation of Alexander Harris  
  
  
I was about to leave. It was 6 pm and, as I said before, my stomach was demanding attention. But as I left the office and headed in the lobby, who did I see? The Summers sisters heading for the exit, accompanied by a young man. Tall, well built, goofy face. He had a somewhat happy walk, and he seemed somehow less affected by the world than the two girls. And as strange as it may sound, the word ÔnormalÕ came to my mind. They were talking, the man laughed at some point.   
  
"Hey!" I yelled, and my voice echoed in the empty hallway.   
  
The three stopped abruptly and turned their heads towards me. The look in their eyes told me they had expected someone else. Buffy Summers shook her head and whispered:  
  
"It's just the detective,"   
  
Ha! Just the detective? What did she mean by that?   
  
"Oh hi, Mr. Thrump," the other Summers girl, saluted me in a friendly way.   
  
"God, what does he want now?" I heard the older one whisper.   
  
She thought I didn't hear her, but I did. I have good ears, you know.   
  
"Sorry for interrupting you," I said, politely. "But are you by any chance, Alexander Harris?"   
  
I had a hunch. The man looked cautiously over at Buffy Summers, who held his gaze for a moment before making a gesture with her hand that was probably some sort of secret code.  
  
"Yeah, that'd be me," the man said, his voice a little nervous.  
  
"I thought so..."   
  
I was right!   
  
"Would you mind stepping into my office for a moment?"   
  
"Uhm...yeah, sure."   
  
He was obviously not feeling very comfortable talking to me. A-ha! Finally, a witness that would surely crack! I struggled to hide my inner glee.  
  
"We'll wait for you out here." Buffy Summers told him before he followed me into the office.   
  
Had there been some sort of threat in her words? A threat that reminded this Harris that when we left my office they would be there? Free to do whatever they wished with him? Maybe even dispose of him as they had disposed of Skittles? Was Alexander Harris an unwilling accomplice to their plot? And if so, would he let the truth triumph?   
  
As he sat down in the chair, where only minutes ago the two Summers sisters had sat, I analyzed him again. He really didn't seem the murderous type, more like your prankster than your killer. I could tell at first glance, this was a funny guy. So how did he manage to get himself in the middle of all of this intrigue? Had a woman driven him to crime? Some feeling for one of the Summers sisters that was unreciprocated? Or even...what if he and Skittles knew each other from a long time ago? Two pranksters. Had Alexander Harris tried to pull a prank on Skittles and it backfired? But no, it had to be the Summers sisters. They had the motive, they had the opportunity, and they could have pulled together the perfect crime. A crime into which they had also dragged this poor man that sat in front of me.   
  
"So..."   
  
He cleared his throat, when he noticed my stare.  
  
"I'm sorry, I was just thinking about something else."   
  
I apologized for my sudden blank.   
  
"Tell me, Mr Harris, have you known the Summers sisters for a long time?"   
  
"Yeah. About 6 years and please don't call Mr Harris. Makes me think of my Dad, makes my skin crawl. Just call me Xander."   
  
"And in these six years did you perchance....have a relationship with one of them?" I asked while I relaxed in my chair.   
  
My hunger had to wait. I had a murder to solve, and Xander Harris would provide my answers.  
  
"I used to have a crush on Buffy, way back in the early days of highschool, but that's over with. And as for Dawn....Ó  
  
he grimaced,  
  
Ò ÔEwwwwÕ does not even begin to cover my thoughts."   
  
Obviously the idea of a relationship with someone as young as Dawn Summers did not appeal to Xander Harris. Maybe some kind of repressed love, because of the whole age thing...that would definitely drive a man to murder.  
  
"So...where were you yesterday night between eight and twelve pm?"   
  
I went back to the initial theory, before I started rebuilding it from scratch.  
  
"I think I was still at Buffy's at eight. We had to clean. You...er...know how messy teens get!"   
  
He looked around the room with a nervous glare.   
  
"And after?"   
  
I could see the hesitation in his eyes.  
  
"Er...Buffy walked me home. We talked. I told her to patch things up with Dawnie so she wouldn't be all gloomy on her big day, so Buffy went to the Bronze and I went home."  
  
"You mean Buffy didn't come all the way home with you? And she left before you got there? Maybe around eleven?"   
  
Confessions, at last! Everything was going to tie together now!  
  
"No...no! It was more like 11.30." he said, but it was obvious he had just improvised the answer.  
  
"Did you stay at home after that? Or did you go somewhere?"   
  
It was pointless to insist on the time. He would lie, but I knew the truth!   
  
"Yes...er...no. I went out to get a sandwich."   
  
A sandwich after midnight? Now this was suspicious. Where would he get a sandwich after midnight? Maybe the Summers' house, there must have been some left over sandwiches from the party...did this mean he never left the Summers house? That the walk home was all just a big lie? But why would Buffy Summers need an alibi before midnight and not after? There was something I didn't know. Then suddenly it hit me!  
  
"That wouldn't happen to have been a sandwich...with olives, was it?" I asked calmly, trying not to raise any suspicion.   
  
"Sorry...I don't remember."   
  
He wasn't lying this time. So where had the olive come from? If it had been intentional, Xander Harris would have known his sandwich had olives, but he didn't seem to have any clue about it. Could he be such a good liar?   
  
"Okay. What was your reaction when you saw the clown at the party? People, as I remember, considered your reaction rather odd."   
  
I pondered on whether the man in front of me was really a liar, or just a poor accomplice that had been forced into this conspiracy.   
  
"Honestly? I was freaked. It scared the daylights outta me."  
  
"And why would a clown scare you?" I was surprised.  
  
"Long story. Sixth birthday. Clown. Childhood trauma," he said simply, ruling out the fact that Skittles and he had known each other before.   
  
"Are you sure you didn't know Skittles?" I asked hoping.  
  
"Oh, believe me, clowns are not the sort of people I want to get to know. I only ever knew one in my life...and he just haunts my nightmares these days."   
  
His strange confession suddenly sparked another theory. What if, in his ultimate moment of horror, Xander Harris had faced his fear and killed the one thing that frightened him, a clown? But this would mean the death was a crime of passion, a fatal accident, not something planned.   
  
"Would you be capable of maybe facing a clown to get rid of your fears?"   
  
I wanted to know anyway.  
  
"Nah. Whenever I see a clown I just scream like a girl and hide behind the first skirt I find. I like to call it Clownophobia so I don't feel like my masculinity is somehow threatened."   
  
He was being honest. I liked that. For the first time that evening I felt as if someone was finally speaking some truth.   
  
"And how did Dawn Summers react to the appearance of the clown?"   
  
I wondered if Alexander Harris wasn't just a nice guy trying to help the two sisters reconcile. Maybe instead his good intentions had turned, in the hands of the two twisted minds into a demonic vengeance plan.   
  
"Like any other teen would have. She freaked!"   
  
He wasn't afraid to admit it.   
  
"It was pretty silly of Buffy to forget...but with all the stuff she had to take care of I'm not really surprised."  
  
"Do you think Dawn Summers would be capable of killing her sister?"   
  
It was a question worth asking. Someone who had been around the Summers household for six years must probably know what each person was capable of. He shook his head.  
  
"Never. You know how siblings get, they pick fights and argue a lot, but deep down...they're best buds. Sure, Buffy made a huge mistake, but it's already water under the bridge."   
  
He was right there. He chuckled.   
  
"Believe me if they'd still be mad at each other, Dawn'd still be shut up in her room and Buffy would be out dus...du-dancing her nerves out at the Bronze."   
  
What did he really want to say? What was it Buffy would be doing?   
  
"So you think they've reconciled already?"   
  
I looked at him, trying to see if he twitched.  
  
"Yeah, of course! As I said, they're not the kind of people who hold onto a grudge."   
  
Xander looked me in the eye. His words had meant something. He wanted me to believe that they had reconciled and that they would never be capable of murder. But was this just a trick? Or was he trying to cover for them? Or hide his own guilt behind this amusing fa 


	4. 4

Part 4:  
The interrogation of Willow Rosenburg   
  
It was early morning when I returned to the office. The sun had barely risen over the horizon, but I hadn't been able to sleep all night. This case had me hooked. And I suppose my fiancŽ's snoring didn't help either. I just couldn't seem to put together the pieces of my puzzle. Sure, I had managed to put Xander Harris together with Buffy and Dawn Summers and the hole, the call, the shovel, the clown and the olive, but the slime was still a mystery. Had it been on the clown's suit before he had gone to the meeting? Was it from a previous engagement Skittles had had? The lab analysis hadn't helped much. A bunch of chemical formulas that made absolutely no sense to this case, or me. And the burning of the shovel...so many mysteries still left to solve! Luckily, I still had some time to figure it all out before the chief assigned me to another case,and consigned this one to the huge pile of Sunnydale's unresolved crimes.   
  
My head was just beginning to spin, when I heard footsteps outside. 'At this hour?' I asked myself. No officer in my department was an early bird, Sunnydale made you want to sleep in forever. The footsteps neared my office, and then someone put their hand on the doorknob. I reached for my gun. The door opened slowly, as if someone was trying to sneak in and I aimed my revolver towards the person who'd entered my office.   
  
I was face to face with a woman. Well, my gun was. A redhead stood in front of me, seeming very much surprised at my presence. She seemed really familiar, but I couldn't place her.  
  
"Um...hi?" she hesitated, staring at my gun for a moment.   
  
"Oh, sorry!"   
  
I hadn't realized I was still aiming my gun at her. I lowered the weapon. She seemed harmless.   
  
"Can I help you?"  
  
"No, I mean yes, I'm...I'm..." she stuttered.   
  
This implied some sort of guilt, that is if she didn't always talk with a stutter. She cleared her throat.   
  
"I'm Willow Rosenburg."   
  
"Sorry, doesn't ring a bell,"   
  
I knew her, but I didn't know where from.   
  
"Are you here to report a crime?"  
  
"No, I'm here to talk to you about that clown being killed."   
  
I realized now where I'd previously seen her, at the Summers house when I'd told the two sisters they had to report downtown for interrogation. Still, that familiarity wouldn't go away. I knew her from somewhere else as well. But where?  
  
"Skittles? You're friends with the Summers sisters, right?"   
  
I sat down in my chair, putting my gun away. I had nothing to worry about. She wasn't there to kill me or anything. She had come here looking for something, but since she'd found me here, she'd gone a different way. I wondered how she'd gotten past the officer that was on duty at the front desk. They didn't usually just let people through. Identification and a pass are usually required.   
  
Later, I would find out that no Willow Rosenburg or any other person for that matter had passed by the front desk that early in the morning.   
  
"Yeah...I just, I wanted to tell you... I, um, was in the park that night also, and I saw them and they were nowhere near the clown."   
  
The way Willow Rosenburg spoke, it seemed as if she could be making the story up as she went along. She was fidgeting, and it seemed as if she would never sit down. She seemed like a nice down-to-earth young woman, but somewhere, underneath that girl-next-door appearance something seemed to rumble, a power that was struggling to erupt. She made me feel strange. Like she was trying to get inside my head. I dismissed the idea as being way too far out.   
  
"You were in the park? And...what were you doing there?"   
  
I shook my head. I just didn't seem to be able to focus on her. It was as if something was preventing me.   
  
"I...went for a walk."   
  
Everything she said was an obvious lie, and I couldn't understand why she was being so obvious. She hadn't even prepared for this meeting, because she hadn't expected to find me there. I tried to figure out what she might have wanted from my office. The most obvious guess would be the evidence, of course. Maybe the shoe that proved that Dawn Summers had been in the cemetery and in the park that night? Without the shoe, Dawn Summers couldn't have been placed there, and with a convenient change of confession, everything would point towards her innocence. Now I was getting somewhere! Why would they try to steal evidence if they were innocent? This of course implied that Willow Rosenburg was part of the plan. It was totally unexpected!   
  
"After midnight? That's a pretty strange habit."   
  
I left my thoughts unspoken. I wasn't about to scare off the only witness that might crack.  
  
"Well, I'm a strange person."   
  
She smiled, but seeing as I didn't react, her smile immediately faded.   
  
"I was...um, heading home..."   
  
She made up an excuse. I suddenly felt as if I was a parent interrogating the teenager that was gone all night.   
  
"From where?"   
  
"I went out to...buy a late birthday present," she eventually said.  
  
"Again, after midnight?"   
  
Her story was so fake! Birthday present? Please!   
  
"That's why I came back empty handed."   
  
She decided to finally sit down. I think she feared that she would start pacing if she'd still stand.  
  
"So let me get this straight. You're very close friends with the Summers sisters, and I believe you also live in their house and you forgot Dawn Summers's birthday?"   
  
I was being more than a little skeptical.   
  
  
"I haven't really been feeling like myself these days. I tend to forget a lot of things."   
  
She looked down. What was she? A junkie? An alcoholic?  
  
"Ever considered rehab?" I asked her, thinking that must've been her problem.  
  
"Oh, you could say I just got out of rehab."   
  
She looked up at me. For a moment there I was about to believe her, but then it hit me.   
  
"How could you forget about her birthday with all the party preparations?"   
  
Every word she said was a lie. If she'd been Pinocchio, her nose would've been all the way down the main street by now. She was practically incriminating them all! Ha! All I needed was to get some slick D.A to get her up on the stand. She'd confess everything. Murder, accomplices, why she went to rehab. Okay, so that last one was my own little curiosity.   
  
"Um, well it was more like an extra present. She-she told me how much she wanted these...earrings and, and how no one got them for her, so I thought I should get them for her, cause I felt like I had to make it up to her anyway, but... the antique store was...er...closed." she finished.   
  
She just couldn't look me in the eye. That was the sign of a guilty person.   
  
"Why did you have to make it up to her?" I was curious.  
  
"Bad pre-rehab stuff."   
  
She felt uneasy talking about it. Had she done something so terrible to Dawn Summers that she now would've gladly helped her out in her scheme to kill Skittles? Had she originally been in the plan? Or had she only recently joined this conspiracy? Had Dawn Summers only asked for her help when it came to retrieving the evidence that was incriminating? And had she really been after the shoe? Or did I hold something that was even more precious and I didn't know it?  
  
"Okay, so you just assumed the store would be open around midnight?" I asked suspiciously.   
  
I was wondering if she had really been out that night. The present excuse was definitely phony, but if she did go out that night, where to?   
  
"I thought it was earlier. Like ten pm. I didn't see what time it was when I left the house."  
  
"Were Buffy Summers and Xander Harris at the house when you left?"   
  
I was hoping she hadn't gotten around to talk to the two and maybe she would've betrayed their story somehow.  
  
"No, Buffy walked Xander home."   
  
Oh! And I was so close!  
  
"After you saw the store was closed, you walked back home and passed through the park?" I asked, as I rubbed my face.   
  
I hate it when something doesn't go the way I want it to.   
  
"Yes, and that's when I saw them. Oh...and the clown too." she added, as an afterthought.   
  
"You saw Skittles? And the two Summers sisters? In the same park? At the same hour?"   
  
Yes! This was what I needed! A place, a time. A shoe!   
  
"Umm, yeah. Except Buffy and Dawn were walking on the other side of the park than the clown."   
  
She actually seemed to be telling the truth. This could mean only one thing. She had really been in the park that night! Another person. This wasn't what I was looking for, this scenario was getting more and more complicated with every hour that passed. A fourth person would definitely turn my whole theory upside down again. And after I'd worked so hard on it. But, suppose Willow Rosenburg had been accidentally involved. What if she was the one who burnt the shovel? After Buffy and Dawn Summers had gone, and the burying was left for Xander Harris to do, after which he would return to the Summers' home? She had foiled their plan? Maybe she hadn't known about Xander Harris. Maybe she hadn't known about anything until the previous day when Dawn Summers had probably asked for her help, seeing as she was the one who ruined their plan and even more had things to make up for.   
  
"You saw Skittles?" she nodded. "What was he doing?"  
  
"Just sitting around. Doing nothing. Probably waiting for someone."   
  
She seemed much more comfortable making conversation now. She thought I was more interested in Skittles, as she had apparently been the last person to see him alive. But what had stopped her from committing the murder? Why couldn't she have killed Skittles? She was in the park, at the right time and she owed Dawn Summers. A strong enough motive? Perhaps. But why would she give away her location, the time, if she didn't know she was innocent? That was the real question.   
  
"Did you happen to notice if he had a hand bandaged?"   
  
I put my thoughts aside and concentrated on her.  
  
"I don't think he did. I saw him light a cigarette," she explained.   
  
Skittles smoked? That was new. It explained why the lab reported said his lungs were blacker than coal though. As I looked at her again, I finally realized what was so familiar!  
  
"Has anyone told you...you look a lot like a woman that ran amuck through Sunnydale a couple of months ago? If you had black hair and way freakier eyes, I could swear you were her," I told her, and she suddenly tensed.  
  
"Must've been someone else."   
  
She forced a smile. But maybe she knew the woman. Maybe they were relatives and that's why they looked so much alike.  
  
"Can I ask you a question Miss Rosenburg? I just want an honest opinion."  
  
"Go ahead," she agreed to answer my question.  
  
"Do you think either Dawn or Buffy Summers is capable of murder?"   
  
That's when something weird happened. The room seemed to twist and turn sround us, and the only thing that was left intact was Willow Rosenburg sitting calmly in her chair.   
  
"I want you to get one thing straight, Detective..."   
  
Her voice echoed in the room, and it felt like my ears would explode. I reached out to cover them, but I couldn't feel my arms. It was like I nothing but ears and eyes. Eyes that saw only Willow Rosenburg.   
  
"Buffy did not kill the clown. And Dawn did not kill the clown."   
  
Her words entered my ears and seemed to penetrate my skull and mind, settling somewhere inside. I blacked out.   
  
When I woke up, the phone was ringing. I started when I looked around me. Everything was back to normal. Only one thing was different. Willow Rosenburg was gone. I looked at the clock. It was 8 am. I had slept for two hours? Everything seemed like a dream and I was beginning to question the existence of Willow Rosenburg. Had she really been there? Or had I been so tired that I had fallen asleep, and dreamt of a witness that would solve all my puzzles? No, the room was still full of her scent. Lavender and...magic. Magic? I'm laughing even now at the word that had come to my mind.   
  
Poor girl, I must've fallen asleep while we were talking. What must she have she thought of me? To be make sure she had actually been there, I looked at the chair. It still held the shape of the last person who had sat there. But it could very well have been that of Xander Harris who had been the last person there before Miss Rosenburg.   
  
Just to be sure, later on I called the Summers' home and talked to her, apologizing for falling asleep while we were talking. She accepted my apology, confirming the fact that she had been in my office. So I knew, she hadn't been an aberration of my mind after all.  
  
I spent the rest of the day between donuts and coffee trying to figure out what had happened that morning, as well as on the night of the murder of Skittles. The strange thing was, try as I might, I couldn't seem to find Dawn or Buffy Summers as suspicious as I had before...  
  
End Part 4 


	5. 5

If there are more than a few mistakes in this part, sorry, my beta was busy and I didn't want to wait anymore :)   
  
Part 5 :  
The Witness  
  
It was late. I had spent most of my day, as I said before, pondering over the case. I feared that the time I had to solve this crime was running out. The chief was already bugging me to drop the case and get on a double homicide case that had appeared the previous night. Wounds to the neck. Same old, I thought, cases that would never get an answer, but Skittles's had an answer. I knew it, but I just had to find it. The strange thing was I spent most of the afternoon finding excuses why the Summers sisters were innocent. They had gone to the graveyard together to their mother's grave. They were on the other side of the park. They left before midnight...of course I was fighting myself. A part of me held on to my old theories, but this new side seemed to desperately want the two girls to be innocent. I couldn't explain it then; I can't explain it now.   
As I was about to call it quits I heard a knock on my door. Who could it have been at that hour? Another surprise that would turn my theories upside down? Who knew...I shouted a 'come in' and the door opened. I was surprised at what I saw. A bleached man in a black leather coat with shifty eyes and a strange smile. For some reason I found it impossible to guess an age, he could've been in his early twenties, or late twenties or early thirties, but I couldn't really tell. He gave me the impression of a troublemaker or a guy who talked big and did little. Someone who intimidated by looks and words more than by actions. I chose not to fear him. He didn't seem hell bent on hurting me either.  
"Can I help you?" I asked and he strolled over to the chair in front of me and sat down. The word unnatural came to my mind. Even if I didn't really think he was dangerous, the hairs on the back of my neck couldn't help but stand up.   
"Yeah, you could." An accent! British. This was a British guy. Is that the reason for all the weirdness I felt? Perhaps. Foreigners tend to be very strange. Especially british men and their five o'clock tea. He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. I waited impatiently till he took the first smoke. I don't really appreciate people smoking in my office, especially since I endured five months of total torture to quit the bad habit. He blew the smoke my way. And all I was thinking that moment was: just one smoke, no one had to find out. But then I came back to reality when I remembered the horrible moment when I considered licking my nicotine patch.   
"So?" I asked when he didn't seem to want to start the conversation. "What, did you lose your green card? You are British, aren't you?" these words seemed to get him thinking.  
"No. I'm...Charlie. Yeah, that's it, I'm Charlie," he looked around the office. "Lamp...call," he was obviously struggling to contain his British accent.  
"You're Charlie Lampcall. Okay, so what can I do for you?" I asked briefly wondering how much of that name was real.   
"I'm here to report a crime," he slipped a word in his British accent. I stared at him. He sighed, grunted and said: "Bloody hell, so I'm British!"   
"That's better," I said proud that I had convinced him only with a look to drop his act. "Now if you want to report a crime, you have to fill out a form down at the front desk and..."  
"The man at the front desk said I should see you. It's about that clown. Said you'd be real interested," he slouched back in the chair. It suddenly dawned on me that the policeman that was at the front desk was named Charlie. Coincidence or not?  
"You know something about the murder?" he nodded. "Do you know who did it?"  
"Yeah. A big guy, this tall, ugly face. Seemed to have a bone to pick with the clown," he said lifting his hand up to show me a specific height. My old skepticism started acting up again. Who was this man? A friend of the Summers? A friend of Alexander Harris or Willow Rosenburg that was prepared to commit perjury just so they could get away with it?  
"Really? And when was this?" I asked while watching him intensely. He didn't seem to be bothered by my stare, quite the opposite, he was so confident in himself. Definitely not the look of a witness, but not of a guilty man either. He had nothing to win or lose in this case. That's what his attitude screamed. I could tell, but yet he was there in my office confessing to seeing Skittles's murderer.  
"Two nights ago. I was taking a walk in the park and suddenly this guy with a shovel passes me by and goes straight for the clown. He yelled something like..." he thought about it for a moment. "'You'll pay for screwing up' and he just hit him," he looked at me and realized I was asking myself why hadn't he interfered. "I would've...done something, really, but my shoulder was acting up and that guy was huge" he immediately said.   
"And why didn't you call the police?" His story had no foundation. No one saw anyone else in the park that night!   
"There was a police car right around the corner, I figured you boys in blue would find 'em," he took another smoke from his cigarette.  
"We only found the clown. And he was dead. Why didn't you report this earlier?"   
"I was busy. Besides what is this a bloody interrogation?" he looked at me a little annoyed.  
"I'm sorry, you're right. Would you help our sketch artist draw a picture?" I asked him. For some reason, I wanted him to be a real witness. It would get the Summers sisters off the hook. Our sketch artist quickly entered my office after I called him.   
"What kind of shape did his face have?" Robbie, the sketch artist asked as I looked over them.   
"Round face. Biddy eyes, I think they were black. Could've been brown too. He had a scar on his chin. I think he had a couple of missing teeth and...his hair, black. No, no it was blond and, um, curly. That's it, curly. He had a... big, chin, and very big eyebrows...and flappy ears."   
"Like this?" Robbie showed him the sketch he had drawn. Charlie Lampcall looked at the drawing squinting his eyes pensive.   
"Bigger ears. And the eyebrows met in the middle. And the nose is all wrong... I think it was broken here," he tapped on the sketch. Robbie struggled to correct the drawing.   
"Better?" he handed it back to Charlie.   
"That's him," he said seeming very much convinced. Leaving the sketch behind Robbie left feeling very proud about himself. I looked at the drawing. A scary looking guy looked back at me from the piece of paper. An incredibly ugly, scary guy. If I didn't really doubt the existence of this guy I would've said god was messing up on the day he made him or that he looked more like a gorilla than a man.   
"Tell me something, mr. Lampcall, do you by any chance happen to know the Summers sisters? Or Willow Rosenburg and Alexader Harris?" I asked and he looked at me strangely.  
"Never heard of 'em," he said suddenly putting out his second cigarette in my flower vase. I looked at the cigarette floating in the water left over from the flowers I had thrown out that morning. I momentarily pictured myself desperately trying to light it.   
"Are you positive?" I asked again staring back at him.   
"Yeah. You'd think I'd remember knowing four people," he was one step from rolling his eyes. "So can I go now?"  
"I suppose you can...I'll call you if you're needed," I told him, but realized I had no idea what his phone number was. "Where can I find you?"   
"Yellow pages?" he suggested as he got up. "I hope you catch the bastard," he said in his most serious faked tone before he left my office.   
I was left there with the sketch in my hand wondering what I was suppose to do. I started thinking about convincing Charlie Lampcall to take a lie detector test, but something told me it wouldn't work. Call it a gut instinct. I stared at the drawing again. Who was this mystery man? Was he the real criminal and had I been thinking all the wrong things for the last two days? But what about that guilty look in Dawn Summers' eyes? Or Buffy Summers' shock when she found out I knew she had been in the graveyard too? And Willow Rosenburg's shaky confession? Or Xander Harris's olive sandwich? And Charlie Lampcall's obvious fakeness? Who had done it and how? And where did Charlie fit into all of this? He was the perfect alibi. The witness that would solve all their problems. They backed each other out and if that didn't work they'd send in the mysterious witness that would turn all the police's leads upside down.   
I threw the sketch on the desk. Why should I continue to hit myself in the head with it? Sure I wanted to know who it was, but in Sunnydale no one really cares if you find out who killed someone cause it's just one little needle in the hay stack. And what I've learnt in my career as a Sunnydale PD detective, one needle doesn't stand up to the hay stack. Does that mean I should stop solving crimes and just stand around and do nothing? No, it means I should just drop the cases that I can't find a solution to. In the long time I spend working on a hopeless case I could be solving twenty others that do have a suspect and a killer I could catch. So I decided to add the sketch to Skittles's file and hand it over to the chief. Case closed, yet still a mystery.  
  
End Part 5  
  
To be continued... Stay tuned for the two conclusions of 'Who killed Skittles the clown?' in one of which Ronald Thrump lays out his final theory on what happened and the second in which the writer of the fic reveals what really happened to Skittles. 


	6. 6

Part 6:  
Detective Thrump's conclusion   
  
Even now, after a couple of weeks, as I sit with a pile of unsolved crimes in front of me, I ponder on what really happened that night...How had Skittles found his grave? Sometimes I think everything was just a massive coincidence, but I for one don't usually believe in them. There were too many people at the right place at the right time. Dawn Summers and her sister Buffy, Xander Harris, Willow Rosenburg and the mysterious Charlie Lampcall I was never able to track down again. It's true some of my theories might've been a little off, but there must have been some truth in them. The trick was to put the right ones head to head. Of course, it took a while until everything matched, but I was willing to go through the trouble, even if it might've been too late. So, for a couple of weeks I drove my fellow detectives and my fiancée to the brink of insanity, but I guess it was worth it, for ultimately, I found an answer. A puzzling answer that sometimes, like today, still made me wonder.  
So this is my last theory...Dawn Summers' birthday party - what started out as a little joke between close friends ended up in a cruel prank for the teenage girl. Her friends pestered her about the clown so much it made something inside Dawn Summers snap. The initial madness towards her sister turned towards the clown. Dawn casually slipped out during her birthday bash at the Bronze and called Skittles. Who had she gotten the phone number from? Obviously her sister. She was in it from the beginning. They had reconciled while planning the murder. Nothing brings people back together than a good old fashion murder. The sister came to the Bronze as an excuse for Dawn to leave for an hour. First she was hoping her friends wouldn't notice, but they did, that's when plan B kicked in. The sister wanted to make up with her. Everyone gave the same reason, Dawn herself, her sister and Xander Harris.   
Xander Harris was supposed to be considered merely a useful alibi, his true contribution to be never discovered. He would confirm Buffy Summers' departure to the Bronze. But after Buffy Summers went on her way to the Bronze, he went to the graveyard where he conveniently abandoned a shovel for the two sisters to find on their way from the Bronze.   
The two set out to the park and on their way stopped at the graveyard to pick up the shovel. They found Skittles and hit him with the shovel on the head. The slime must've been there on the ground. He must've fell right on it. They started digging the hole. At some point Dawn Summers looked at her watch and realized how late it was. She quickly left for the Bronze. Left alone, Buffy Summers seeked help from Xander Harris. When they arrived at the park Xander was still eating his sandwich. Buffy Summers got an idea. If they would shove something down his throat, it might seem like an accident. So they put an olive down his throat. They heard the police car nearing and panicked. Burnt the shovel that accidentally fell on Skittles. They somehow managed to get the shovel out of the way and rolled the body in the hole and ran away before the police got there. Hearing of the happenings, Willow Rosenburg decided to get rid of any evidence - the shoe, the shovel - which might have incriminated the Summers sisters. It didn't work because I was there, so she tried to convince me she had seen them that night and that they were completely innocent. And somehow it had a certain effect on me, without me thinking her story was in any way true. Had she been there that night? It didn't really matter; she would have lied willingly for her friends. She hadn't been an accomplice to the murder itself, but she would have easily committed perjury to make it up to Dawn Summers for what ever she had said or done to her in her junkie days.  
So what about Charlie Lampcall? A phony name, a non-existent fingerprint I dusted off my desk and a suspect that didn't seem to exist. The wanted poster is still hanging at the front desk, but no one really seems to recognize him. The chief suggested maybe it was someone out of town who had a little too much to drink and maybe picked on the clown and accidentally killed him and then split town. A little far off if you ask me.  
Charlie Lampcall might've been a friend of the family with a record so clean he didn't even have a parking ticket and wanted to help out. Or a computer whiz who had erased all knowledge of his existence and wanted to help the two sisters out of the jam.   
Maybe it was the way I figured it out, maybe not. It could've gone a thousand different ways and maybe it did. All I know is the Summers did it, I don't know how, but they did it and next time they'll plan anything murderous together, you know I'll be there to foil their plot. One day I'll book 'em, even if it's just for littering.   
This is just another story of society turning good kids into criminal masterminds. In some ways I feel sorry for poor Dawn Summers... One of these days she won't be able to hide her tracks anymore and then her perfect world will crumble. Still, I'd really like to know what the hell happened that night...  
  
End Part 6  
  
One down, one to go! The Epilogue is next! Don't forget to check it out if you're at least a bit curious to find out what *really* happened :) 


	7. 7 Epilogue

Part 7:  
The Epilogue or what really happened to Skittles the clown  
  
  
Well, since detective Thrump was a bit out his league in this particular case - or hey maybe he's doomed to always get tangled in his own theories - I'll provide the answer to the question that gives the title of this story and that, of course, still taunts poor Ronnie.   
  
  
Dawn Summers had been indeed very mad about what had happened at her birthday party, but she blamed, above all, her sister. She left the house without even saying a word to Buffy. Right after she left with her friends, a demon attacked the Summers' household, apparently being after Xander, not the slayer. Buffy fought the demon managing to make a big mess in the house. At the last moment, the demon somehow managed to escape. Buffy, Xander and Willow cleaned up and when it was time for Xander to go, Buffy offered to walk him home, to make sure he got there in one piece. She also decided that on her way back from his apartment she could go hunting.   
  
  
As they walked and talked, Xander managed to talk Buffy into going to the Bronze and making up with Dawnie so she wouldn't be mad on her big day.   
  
  
At the Bronze, Dawn had just told Laurie she was going to the bathroom, but on her way there she met Buffy. Acting a bit hostile at first she eventually agreed to take a walk with her sister.   
  
  
Meanwhile back at the Summers' home, Willow figured out why the demon was after Xander. Because of a medallion she had gifted him with. Seeing as the phone was dead - Buffy had tried to choke the demon with the telephone wire - she left for Xander's apartment.  
  
  
Skittles arrived at the park a little before midnight, while Buffy and Dawn were walking on the other side, talking. They had made up once Buffy apologized and stated that her intentions had been all good, that she hadn't wanted to embarrass her in front of her friends.   
  
  
Buffy spotted the slimy demon that had attacked Xander at their house and of course, proceeded to kick the living daylights out of him and kill him. The problem was, this was the kind of demon that didn't dissolve into nothingness, it had to be buried. Buffy sent Dawn all the way home to get a shovel. Annoyed, Dawn stopped by the graveyard that was much closer in hope of finding an abandoned shovel, which she did. Heading back, she went through the other side of the park, where Skittles was. It was very dark. When Skittles saw her, he wanted to apologize for what had happened at her birthday party, but as he put his hand on Dawn's shoulder, she startled so hard, she actually hit him with the shovel twice before she noticed it wasn't a demon, but the clown from her party. She let out scream, dropped the shovel and ran off.   
  
  
Hearing the scream from across the empty park, Buffy ran in that direction to see Dawn running away and to find Skittles and the shovel lying on the ground. Buffy tried to feel for the pulse, but couldn't find it. She figured he was dead. Knowing it must have been an accident Buffy brought the body of the slime demon from the other side of the park and decided she would bury both bodies there. The demon's body brushed against Skittles leaving slimy trails on his colorful costume. Buffy started digging the hole. When she was almost finished, the demon suddenly started to move, quickly getting up and making a run for it. Highly annoyed, Buffy left the hole and Skittles' body behind and followed the demon.   
  
  
At the same time Willow was passing through the park on her way to Xander's and saw the entire scene. She thought it was her duty to finish off what Buffy started. She levitated Skittles' body and put it in the hole. As she didn't need the shovel, she lifted it up in the air and enflamed it. As the shovel was burning, a groggy sound was heard from the hole and Skittles stood up accidentally grabbing the burning shovel for support. He let out a scream, as his hand got burnt and his plastic nose melted when it came face to face with the flames. He fell back down in the hole, hitting his head. Willow panicked. She quickly turned out the shovel and left towards the Summers' house.   
  
  
Meanwhile, the demon had run into the graveyard where Buffy finally managed to kill it. The heart hadn't been on the right side. Seeing as she had to bury the corpse of the demon in the graveyard, she called Xander from a payphone and told him all about Skittles and instructed him to go to the park and bury the body himself. On his way out of his apartment, Xander grabbed a sandwich that had olives in it.  
  
  
As he found the hole with Skittles' body in it and the mysteriously burnt shovel, Xander started thinking the whole situation was a bit strange. As he kneeled down next to the whole to look at the clown, Skittles suddenly stood up, moaning in pain. Obviously Xander freaked and ran off, dropping his sandwich right in Skittles' arms. The clown climbed out of the hole and bandaged his burnt hand with a clean handkerchief he had in his pocket and then went on to eat the sandwich. No use wasting good food. As he took a big bite out of the sandwich, an olive got stuck in his throat and as he grabbed his neck in despair he slipped on some slime and fell back down in the hole, this time, dead for good.   
  
  
Things were cleared out at the Summers' house and Dawn and Willow didn't feel guilty anymore as Xander had seen Skittles alive and well after their encounters with him. The next morning, detective Thrump visited the Summers' house and invited them downtown to answer a few questions.  
  
  
The only question that remains now is: who made the phone call? You can always assume that *that* was the real killed, because if Skittles hadn't been in the park that night, he wouldn't have eaten the sandwich that killed him. So who was it? I'll leave at least that much a mystery. So to end it like detective Thrump did, I'll say this is the story of a good sandwich gone bad :)  
  
The End   
  
  
I really hope the end of the story matched the rest of it. I always thought all detective stories have to end in a more complicated plot :D 


End file.
